The Progress of the EU-Balkan countries Action Plan in Science

1
The Progress of the EU-Balkan countries Action
Plan in Science Technology

• Dr. George BONAS
• General Secretariat for Research and Technology
• Athens, Greece

2
Adoption of the Action Plan Important steps

• Preliminary events (2000 2002) Vienna, Bonn,
  Bucharest, Sofia, Dubrovnik,
• Greek Presidencys input
• Background material and first draft
• High Level Officials meeting (Feb. 03)
• Ministerial Conference (June 03)

3
The SHARED VISION document

• Sets the Political context Zagreb process and
  Thessaloniki Summit
• Defines four Main Goals
• Improvement of Infrastructures
• Improvement of Human Potential
• Institution Building
• Joint RTD activities

4
The Action Plan

• Specifies the Objectives and thematic priorities
• Proposes for the Implementation
• Instruments (Multilateral, Regional, Bilateral)
• Implementing modalities
• ad-hoc group, Workprogramme
• Two Task Forces
• Duration 3 years

5
How to implement the Action Plan

• Cooperation of High-level Officials
• Stimulation of Scientists and Institutions
• Skills and imagination for good proposals and
  adequate sources of funding

6
Where are we today? (1/3)

• Meeting of the ad-hoc group (Florence, November
  2003)
• Austria will act as facilitator for 2004
• Greece will host a Web site for the Action Plan

The HLOs maintain the momentum!
7
Where are we today? (2/3)

• In the Action Plan we can read
• Institution building
• synergies between bilateral initiatives and
  programmes ongoing
• Creation of NCP systems ongoing
• Evaluation and benchmarking of national research
  systems possibly

8
Where are we today? (3/3)

• Joint RTD activities
• Decentralized water managt scheduled
• Infrastructure
• Electronic networks for science ongoing
  (SEEREN and Task Force)

9
Task Force on Electronic Networks

• First meeting in Athens (GRNET, 11/6/03)
• 23 experts, good geogr. coverage
• 11 from the region
• 10 from EU
• EC-INFSO, UniAdrion

10
Recommendations to Governments

• Recognize importance of NRENs
• Need for one NREN per country
• Exert pressure to operators for tariffs
• New business models of broadband infrastructure
  sharing
• Harmonize the regulatory environment with EU

11
Planed activities

• Explore and exploit sources of funding for
• Training of staff
• Interconnection (regional and with EU)
• NRENs equipment
• Create small Working Groups to focus on
• Infrastructure
• Regulatory environment
• Funding issues
• Organizational models and awareness actions

12
Epilogue

• The Action Plan sets the field for our
  initiatives in order to produce coherent results
  the next 3 years, for the benefit of the Balkan
  region.
• In less than 6 months time, several activities
  have already been undertaken.
• The Task Force can catalyze new initiatives to
  ensure the continuity of ongoing activities (e.g.
  SEEREN) and to address other important issues.